Australian news, and some related international items

Victorian homeowners will be paid nearly $5000 towards the cost of household solar batteries if Labor is re-elected

Victorian Labor offers a $4838 battery bonanza for homes with solar panels , The Age ,By Noel Towell & Benjamin Preiss, 10 September 2018Victorian homeowners will be paid nearly $5000 towards the cost of household solar batteries by a re-elected Andrews government in the latest move aimed at making the state Australia’s leader in domestic-scale renewable energy.

The latest promise of subsidies for small-scale renewable energy will see households who already have solar panels able to claim half the cost – up to $4838 – of batteries that can store energy generated on their rooftops.

The announcement comes as the Andrews government commits to building six new renewable energy plants across regional Victoria, generating enough power for 640,000 homes.

The three solar and three wind farms, producing 928 megawatts of power, will be built by private companies.

Labor has been encouraged by more than 9000 registrations of interest in its subsidised solar program in the three weeks since it began its announcements. The new batteries policy will cost an estimated $40 million, with 10,000 households expected to take part, lured by the chance of cutting up to $650 from their annual power bills with the rapidly improving battery storage technology.

The announcement is part of a suite of subsidies and payments aimed at putting solar technology in 720,000 Victorian homes. The centrepiece of the government energy renewable election pitch, a $1.2 billion subsidies scheme offering free solar panels to 650,0000 households, was announced in August.

It was followed by a $60 million promise to pay $1000 toward the installation of solar hot water systems in homes that are not suitable for rooftop solar panels.

The latest announcement will open up subsidies to even more households – those already using solar panels to generate power – as Labor looks to build a strong cost-of-living policy platform heading into November’s election………

The government says technology is in development that will allow neighbourhoods to link their batteries, creating “micro-grids” of shared stored power to lower electricity prices even further.

FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Nuclear facilities, including power stations and radioactive waste dumps, are now banned in Queensland.

Nuclear facilities banned under the Act include:

·nuclear reactors (whether used to generate electricity or not);

·uranium conversion and enrichment plants;

·nuclear fuel fabrication plants;

·spent fuel processing plants; and

·facilities used to store or dispose of material associated with the nuclear fuel cycle e.g. radioactive waste material.

Exemptions under the legislation include facilities for the storage or disposal of waste material resulting from research or medical purposes, and the operation of a nuclear-powered vessel.

1 FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Australia has long rejected nuclear power, and it is banned in Federal and State laws. The nuclear lobby is out to first repeal those laws, and then to get the Australian government to commit to buying probably large numbers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) . This could mean first importing plutonium and/or enriched uranium, as some reactor models, (thorium ones) require these to get the fission process started. That would, in effect, mean importing nuclear wastes.

There’s an all-too short period for people to send in Submissions to the 4 Parliamentary Inquiries now in progress.